Page 53 - IOSH JanFeb24_Full LR

The project

With a background in ‘WAST’s health and psychological aspect of programme was risk perception – I wanted

health and safety with safety department OSH,’ she explains. that to be the significant factor in the areas
steel giant Tata, Nicola was fairly traditional ‘People coming in with that we were looking to address.
was working at Public in operational nature fresh eyes will always see ‘One of the ways that we are doing this
Health Wales when she and perhaps lacked a things that maybe others is a behavioural safety programme that
was seconded to WAST strong systems approach who have been in an brings in human factors and incorporates
in March 2020. Although that integrated into the organisation for many years those into risk assessment templates, safe
Nicola’s initial role was fabric of the operational might not see. In my case, operative procedures, and more recently we
to help manage the environment and the 25 years I worked at have started to build that into our incident
challenges posed by clinical nature of the Tata coincided with Tata’s investigations to give us a proper root cause.’
COVID-19, she was soon organisation. I wanted own cultural improvement Before moving forward with the
asked to put together a to bring in a Working journey, so I was able to programme in its entirety, in October 2021,
proposal for identifying Safely programme that adapt and implement a lot Nicola ran a 12-month ‘pump prime’ phase
overseen by her Working Safely programme
integrated that governance of the learnings from Tata
potential improvements
PHOTOGRAPHY: PATRICK OLNER within the trust. and also brought in the with WAST.’ manager Graham Stockford to get things out
of the starting blocks.
‘We seconded some frontline operational
staff from the trust to help with this pump

prime phase. It recognised that while bringing
in OSH professionals would get us so far, it
Objectives was deep understanding of the work as done
‘The objective of the programme is to by operational colleagues that would allow us
improve working lives, making it safer for to move forward and improve,’ says Nicola.
our staff and volunteers, but also to have a ‘A deep history and culture within the

positive impact on our patients,’ Nicola says. health sector and ambulance setting has

‘The programme has two aims: firstly to woven in attitudes and values across the
bring about a cultural shift in health and workforce towards safety; by working closely
safety within the organisation, and secondly with operational colleagues, we quickly
to further improve our grip and assurance learnt the aspects we would want to retain
systems that ensure compliance. You can put and celebrate, and other things we need
all the policies and procedures in place, but to improve.’
culture will still eat process for breakfast, so During pump prime, there was also a

this is about getting staff to realise why we transformation board to monitor progress.
need them to operate or perform their duties Reporting to the board was a delivery group
in certain ways. of trade unions, health and safety staff and

‘It is also about really listening to our operations colleagues, along with experts in
people, many of whom perform their duties occupational health and infection prevention
in urgent and emergency situations, to ensure and control. It was a two-tier approach that
the safety interventions we make are truly allowed both top-down and bottom-up input
workable and proportionate.’ and oversight of progress.
Nicola based key facets of the Working ‘The Working Safely ethos has now
Safely programme on aspects learned migrated into business as usual,’ Nicola
during her master’s degree: leadership explains. ‘Where we identify things
accountability and culture, competency, to improve, we absorb this into the
safety systems, communication subcultures, organisation’s integrated medium-term plan,
and measuring performance while also an annual deliverable plan, which means its
adding service delivery. performance has to be reported to the board
‘However, the thing that I wanted to make at regular intervals and its objectives are
key within the scope of the Working Safely reviewed on a yearly basis.

IOSH MAGAZINE 53

52-55 Case Study_Jan-Feb 2024_IOSH.indd 53 12/12/2023 10:17